We survived the warm spell although there was a bit more rain than expected at least from where we were sitting. The deep cold returned in a very short amount of time and the re-freeze began. This is actually a blessing in disguise as these freeze-thaw cycles can create really solid pole plants. We are now back to cold conditions.
We also picked up about about 4 inches of snow (a lot of it windblown) on the east end of the trail last night and groomers were out at Forestville this morning roll packing and then grooming. We should get some better reports over the next few days but the big news is that the NWS is calling for possible significant snow accumulations Monday into Tuesday for the area that contains the west end, and middle section, of the trail. This is really good news…it’s not good news for our attention spans or the amount of time we spend looking at the radar however. Afterwards, there appears to be a trend towards mild temperatures again with the possibility of a few weather systems rolling though. What “mild” means and what kind of possible precipitation we get will be the big question mark and there’s no way to know until we get into late next week.
The focus of our snow interest is really centered on the West and Central part of the 50K course (K’s 1-24) – the rest seems to continue to be in great shape.
This trail conditions reporter also was reminded this morning that at least it’s not 2015…at this time in 2015 there were sections of trail with NO snow at all. Dirt, dead grass, and standing water pools was all there was on the east side of the trail. We still ended up with a full course in 2015 with good reviews on the course conditions from skiers crossing the finish line. So…we’re still feeling pretty good…we’re just greedy it would seem.
More to come!